Published 4:47 pm, Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Immigration reform is needed in order to fix the existing system and to deal with the reality that an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants are living in the shadows in this country.

Many Democrats have long supported that position, as have some of the more enlightened members of the Republican Party -- but not enough for meaningful legislation to stand a chance of getting passed by Congress.

In recent months, however, after watching 71 percent of Hispanic voters -- a key and growing bloc of the electorate -- support Democratic President Barack Obama in the November election, a growing number of Republicans have switched positions on this controversial issue. Wiser heads in the GOP recognize that as long as Republicans block immigration reform, they stand little chance of converting Hispanic or other minority voters to their electoral cause.

Bipartisan groups in both the U.S. Senate and House have been working for months to hammer out an immigration reform bill that can get enough votes to become law. Most notably, a "Gang of Eight" in the Senate -- led by Democrats Chuck Schumer and Dick Durbin and Republicans John McCain and Marco Rubio -- has proposed sweeping legislation that addresses the key issues, including increased border security and an earned pathway to citizenship.

As a result, there has been justifiable, although cautious, optimism that long-overdue immigration reform might actually take place.

As reform proponents chanted at recent rallies in Danbury and other cities across the country, "El tiempo es ahora. The time is now."

Indeed, the time is now -- for the city of Danbury, which in 2006 became the poster child for the national debate over immigration reform when Mayor Mark Boughton urged that state police be empowered to enforce federal immigration laws, and for thousands of other cities and towns across America.

Predictably, there are those in Congress, primarily conservative Republicans, who oppose immigration reform, favor deportation of undocumented immigrants and view a pathway to citizenship as "amnesty" for lawbreakers.

Now, some of those opponents -- including Sens. Rand Paul and Chuck Grassley -- are hoping to use the April 15 bombings at the Boston Marathon as an excuse to delay or derail immigration reform.

We find it despicable that those legislators -- some of whom cruelly claimed that colleagues were "exploiting" the families of the mass shooting victims at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown to pass gun-safety legislation -- would now exploit the tragedy in Boston to block legislation they oppose.

Their arguments are groundless.

The bombings in Boston have nothing to do with what immigration reform legislation is intended to accomplish.

The two suspects in the marathon attacks were not undocumented immigrants; one was a citizen, and the other was a legal resident.

And the reality is that immigration reform would provide the U.S. government with far more information about the 11 million immigrants now living illegally in the country than would leaving them in the shadows.

We call on Congress to ignore the entreaties of those who are grasping at straws to block real immigration reform.

We urge our nation's leaders to agree on comprehensive, effective, humane legislation that will tighten up border security, provide a realistic pathway to citizenship, crack down on those who illegally employ undocumented immigrants, and keep families together.